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Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby Acé

Say if a snooker players earns over £150k in a season would they get taxed 45% of that as per the rules in the UK?

And what happens if you win a tournament in China, let's say one of those £150k tournaments would a player living in the UK have to pay the tax according to China or according to UK rules?

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby HappyCamper

Short answer, yes.

For a player who is a UK resident for tax purposes, winnings in UK events would be as domestic income and taxed as such.

Events abroad would be treated as overseas income, so would be taxed at source subject to local regulations. There may be a further tax liability in the UK depending on the specifics.

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby Acé

HappyCamper wrote:Short answer, yes.

For a player who is a UK resident for tax purposes, winnings in UK events would be as domestic income and taxed as such.

Events abroad would be treated as overseas income, so would be taxed at source subject to local regulations. There may be a further tax liability in the UK depending on the specifics.


thanks

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby sundaygirl

The majority of snooker players would be classed as self employed, so they are being taxed on profits not winnings, being on tour is expensive but these expenses are tax deductible
The successful ones would do better as small businesses employing friends/family
Someone of Ronnie’s earning power with multiple business interests is probably drawing a salary from a company/companies his manager/accountants have set up and his tax situation will be incredibly complex

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby Dan-cat

Acé wrote:Say if a snooker players earns over £150k in a season would they get taxed 45% of that as per the rules in the UK?

And what happens if you win a tournament in China, let's say one of those £150k tournaments would a player living in the UK have to pay the tax according to China or according to UK rules?


Tax bands work like this. They would get taxed 40% on any earnings over £50,271 to £150,000,
over £150,000 it's 45%

So for their earnings up £50,271, they pay the normal rate of 20%. Capiche?

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby Dan-cat

Also, you'd hope they have a good accountant, who can claim tax breaks against all expenses when working away from home, right down to shoe leather and clothing, mobile phone, all travel expenses, subsistence (food), cue and equipment costs, health and travel insurance etc etc etc

So say they earned £150k gross, prob a good accountant could get that down to £100k net, before they have to pay tax on it. So they are only paying tax on the £100k.

As a freelancer in the UK, there are very helpful tax breaks, to offset the benefits that you may get as a PAYE employee i.e. health insurance, pension contributions etc. But you do have to know about them.

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby Dan-cat

...and also expenses incurred when not playing, i.e. the tab at the practice hall, or the cost of fitting your own table (and upkeep), coaching, management and agent costs would all be legit business expenses.

In the case of someone like Ronnie or Judd, their managers will likely have set up companies for them, and all winnings and earnings will go through this company, which would be even more efficient from a tax point of view.

This is not Jimmy Carr or Gary Barlow style tax evasion, this is all completely legit.

This reminds me of an excellent Stewart Lee joke:

The least taxable transaction: Jimmy Carr sat at home buying Gary Barlow's CD from Amazon. <laugh> <laugh>

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby mick745

There is no income tax payable on the first £12,570 of income usually, although national insurance starts lower down the income bracket.

An employees tax code shows how much they can earn before income tax is deductable, usually this is 10 times the figure of the code, for instance my tax code is 1257L, e.g. 12,570 before tax is deductable.

There are actually three bands, basic, higher and additional in England, 20% basic rate up to £37,700, 40% up to £150k, and 45% over 150k.

So say Mark Selby earned £820500 (taken from the one year prize money list) in the past year he would have paid:

£349,153.40 income tax plus
£20,288.84 national insurance.

He'd have got to keep around £451k of his earnings.

Although as others have pointed out it would depend what players business arrangements are.

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby Dan-cat

So to round this up, if a player earns £150k (from winnings, exhibitions, sponsorship) and a good accountant got that down to a net (taxable) amount of £100k, they would only pay 40% on £50k of that.

I'm done here. I know two very good accountants if anyone needs one! One specialises in start-ups companies, the other in freelance tax :-)

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby Dan-cat

mick745 wrote:There is no income tax payable on the first £12,570 of income usually, although national insurance starts lower down the income bracket.

An employees tax code shows how much they can earn before income tax is deductable, usually this is 10 times the figure of the code, for instance my tax code is 1257L, e.g. 12,570 before tax is deductable.

There are actually three bands, basic, higher and additional in England, 20% basic rate up to £37,700, 40% up to £150k, and 45% over 150k.

So say Mark Selby earned £820500 (taken from the one year prize money list) in the past year he would have paid:

£349,153.40 income tax plus
£20,288.84 national insurance.

He'd have got to keep around £451k of his earnings.

Although as others have pointed out it would depend what players business arrangements are.


He would have earned way more than just his WST prize money - from exhibitions and sponsorship.

...and yeah as you said no way he would be paying a regular tax amount like loads of it would be offset against legit expenses.

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby Dan-cat

chengdufan wrote:Great to hear that there are many ways for the richest to avoid paying a fair amount of tax <ok>


You are missing the point... it's a fair amount of tax.

If you had a normal PAYE job and you were paid £100k per annum, you wouldnt be expected to pay for your business expenses out of that would you - client lunches, travel costs to meetings, equipment costs etc. Would that be fair?

I mean sure Selby's loaded (particularly this year <laugh>) so that is a bit of an unusual case, and whether in general the rich should pay more tax (probably, yes!) then that's a different discussion. I was reporting on current tax laws.

I would start with getting the big corporations to pay their proper amount of tax in their respective countries (Amazon, Facebook etc pay basically buck all in the Uk and Ireland, the counterargument is they employ thousands of people here, and if they had to pay proper corporation tax would probably take their operations elsewhere -bit flimsy if you ask me.)

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby chengdufan

Dan-cat wrote:
chengdufan wrote:Great to hear that there are many ways for the richest to avoid paying a fair amount of tax <ok>


You are missing the point... it's a fair amount of tax.

If you had a normal PAYE job and you were paid £100k per annum, you wouldnt be expected to pay for your business expenses out of that would you - client lunches, travel costs to meetings, equipment costs etc. Would that be fair?

I mean sure Selby's loaded (particularly this year <laugh>) so that is a bit of an unusual case, and whether in general the rich should pay more tax (probably, yes!) then that's a different discussion. I was reporting on current tax laws.

I would start with getting the big corporations to pay their proper amount of tax in their respective countries (Amazon, Facebook etc pay basically buck all in the Uk and Ireland, the counterargument is they employ thousands of people here, and if they had to pay proper corporation tax would probably take their operations elsewhere -bit flimsy if you ask me.)

Good point, well made.
I stand corrected :-D

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby mick745

Remember though more than a third of the income tax revenue in the uk is paid by the top 1% of earners.

Obviously everyone should pay their way but the top earners already do pay an awful lot of tax.

You may think 500k for winning the wsc is an absolute fortune (and it is) but take into account all the hundreds/thousands of hours practice that led up to it.

And once tax and ni is taken into account you only keep about 280k of the 500k.

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby Acé

sundaygirl wrote:Someone of Ronnie’s earning power with multiple business interests is probably drawing a salary from a company/companies his manager/accountants have set up and his tax situation will be incredibly complex


??? what do you mean?

sponsorships get taxed too I don't think you can avoid that

I assume his sponsorship money is far, far above prize money so he'd also get taxed 45%?

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby Acé

Dan-cat wrote:
Acé wrote:Say if a snooker players earns over £150k in a season would they get taxed 45% of that as per the rules in the UK?

And what happens if you win a tournament in China, let's say one of those £150k tournaments would a player living in the UK have to pay the tax according to China or according to UK rules?


Tax bands work like this. They would get taxed 40% on any earnings over £50,271 to £150,000,
over £150,000 it's 45%

So for their earnings up £50,271, they pay the normal rate of 20%. Capiche?


I know how the bands work

I mostly wanted to know how the income from China is resolved, through UK tax or China's tax but Happycamper told me anything earned overseas is done through overseas tax

I assume this applies to sponsorships too?

@Happycamper

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby mick745

Acé wrote:Jeff Bezos should be taxed, he is too rich, just TOO RICH lol

but hey I'm a hypocrite, I use Amazon for lot of things, just the way it is lol


Probably once you own more money than you could ever spend it wouldnt matter if your tax rate thereafter was 100%.

The difference between having 100 billion dollars and 200 billion dollars probably makes no difference at all to his life.

But the richest people can afford the best accountants.

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby Acé

mick745 wrote:Probably once you own more money than you could ever spend it wouldnt matter if your tax rate thereafter was 100%.

The difference between having 100 billion dollars and 200 billion dollars probably makes no difference at all to his life.

But the richest people can afford the best accountants.


You are right he recently bought this big $500 million yacht and I was reading a stat where if you tax him it wouldn't make much of a difference because of the amount he earns IN A SECOND LOL so he'd make it back

he's that rich that his divorce ain't gonna cost him anything lol

still if the man's that bored that he can buy a $500 million yacht, and that's literally a toy for him, might as well distribute some for a better cause imo, he can actually afford to do it

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby mick745

Acé wrote:
mick745 wrote:Probably once you own more money than you could ever spend it wouldnt matter if your tax rate thereafter was 100%.

The difference between having 100 billion dollars and 200 billion dollars probably makes no difference at all to his life.

But the richest people can afford the best accountants.


You are right he recently bought this big $500 million yacht and I was reading a stat where if you tax him it wouldn't make much of a difference because of the amount he earns IN A SECOND LOL so he'd make it back

he's that rich that his divorce ain't gonna cost him anything lol

still if the man's that bored that he can buy a $500 million yacht, and that's literally a toy for him, might as well distribute some for a better cause imo, he can actually afford to do it


He gave away $10.1 billion to non-profit efforts associated with climate change and education just in 2020.

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby Acé

mick745 wrote:
Acé wrote:
mick745 wrote:Probably once you own more money than you could ever spend it wouldnt matter if your tax rate thereafter was 100%.

The difference between having 100 billion dollars and 200 billion dollars probably makes no difference at all to his life.

But the richest people can afford the best accountants.


You are right he recently bought this big $500 million yacht and I was reading a stat where if you tax him it wouldn't make much of a difference because of the amount he earns IN A SECOND LOL so he'd make it back

he's that rich that his divorce ain't gonna cost him anything lol

still if the man's that bored that he can buy a $500 million yacht, and that's literally a toy for him, might as well distribute some for a better cause imo, he can actually afford to do it


He gave away $10.1 billion to non-profit efforts associated with climate change and education just in 2020.


fair enough I know they do philanthropy just didn't know how much Bezos does, I know his wife did a lot or well ex-wife

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby HappyCamper

Acé wrote:
Dan-cat wrote:
Acé wrote:Say if a snooker players earns over £150k in a season would they get taxed 45% of that as per the rules in the UK?

And what happens if you win a tournament in China, let's say one of those £150k tournaments would a player living in the UK have to pay the tax according to China or according to UK rules?


Tax bands work like this. They would get taxed 40% on any earnings over £50,271 to £150,000,
over £150,000 it's 45%

So for their earnings up £50,271, they pay the normal rate of 20%. Capiche?


I know how the bands work

I mostly wanted to know how the income from China is resolved, through UK tax or China's tax but Happycamper told me anything earned overseas is done through overseas tax

I assume this applies to sponsorships too?

@Happycamper


again the answer is broadly yes.

it can be a bit more complicated for things like sponsorship, endorsements etc. as they aren't always tied neatly to a particular jurisdiction. and will be subject to whatever the contract the player and sponsoring entity enter into. (eg) if a player has a waistcoat sponsor for the entire season that will be worn in uk and overseas events not all of that will necessarily be subject to uk tax.

i believe in the uk at least hmrc would expect tax to be paid on a proportion of a players total global sponsorship income commensurate with the amount of performance days in the uk. (though there was chat about loosening these rules for non uk residents in order to attract more overseas sports events to the uk, i don't know how this progressed).

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby mick745

I always find it a bit bizarre that sometimes they are waistcoat sponsored by say the local butcher from their high street.

I am sure the chinese tv audience of 100m find it interesting but wouldnt be able to buy sausages there even if they wanted to.

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby sundaygirl

Acé wrote:
sundaygirl wrote:Someone of Ronnie’s earning power with multiple business interests is probably drawing a salary from a company/companies his manager/accountants have set up and his tax situation will be incredibly complex


??? what do you mean?

sponsorships get taxed too I don't think you can avoid that

I assume his sponsorship money is far, far above prize money so he'd also get taxed 45%?


Basically a company name is registered at companies house and all the revenue the player generates (which may well vary wildly month to month) is paid to that company

The company pays his travel expenses etc, rents or owns his practice facility, pays his manager, driver, personal assistant etc and the accountant running the company
It also pays the player a regular salary (which will be taxed paye) any excess funds can be held by the company and used if the player has a less lucrative spell in the future
The player will also be a director of said company and can pay himself a bonus if funds allow

With specific regards to my Ronnie comment, I assume his shop/sportswear venture is being run as a separate startup business probably in partnership with others to minimise the risk should it go tits up

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby Pink Ball

mick745 wrote:I always find it a bit bizarre that sometimes they are waistcoat sponsored by say the local butcher from their high street.

I am sure the chinese tv audience of 100m find it interesting but wouldnt be able to buy sausages there even if they wanted to.

That's what you think. Ron Skinner sold a second-hand Zafira to Xi Jinping during the Worlds.

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby SnookerFan

Pink Ball wrote:
mick745 wrote:I always find it a bit bizarre that sometimes they are waistcoat sponsored by say the local butcher from their high street.

I am sure the chinese tv audience of 100m find it interesting but wouldnt be able to buy sausages there even if they wanted to.

That's what you think. Ron Skinner sold a second-hand Zafira to Xi Jinping during the Worlds.


Is that a type of sausage?

Re: Do the top snooker players get taxed?

Postby chengdufan

SnookerFan wrote:
Pink Ball wrote:
mick745 wrote:I always find it a bit bizarre that sometimes they are waistcoat sponsored by say the local butcher from their high street.

I am sure the chinese tv audience of 100m find it interesting but wouldnt be able to buy sausages there even if they wanted to.

That's what you think. Ron Skinner sold a second-hand Zafira to Xi Jinping during the Worlds.


Is that a type of sausage?

I ate a second hand sausage once. It tasted like rubbish.